'MythBusters' test launches cannonball into Californian neighborhood

If there were an urban myth that suburban homes are impervious
to becoming cannon fodder, it just got busted.

Two homes, a sidewalk and a van all took fire after a test for
the US show MythBusters went awry on 6 December
and sent a cannonball out of a bomb range and into a nearby
residential neighbourhood in Dublin, California.

The cannonball, which took an unexpected bounce off a safety
berm during the test, travelled 700 yards (640 meters) outside of
the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb range where it was fired, hit a sidewalk, crashed
through the front door of a home, travelled upstairs and went
through the bedroom of a sleeping couple.

"They didn't actually hear the cannonball come through the
house, what woke them up was the settling of the sheetrock,"
Alameda County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson told
reporters after the incident.

MythBusters, the Discovery Channel show where hosts
Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman prove the validity (or lack thereof)
of various commonly held beliefs, was running the test to determine
if other materials could be fired from a cannon and have the same
effect as a regular cannonball, Nelson said.

The cannonball didn't stop in the sleeping couple's bedroom.
After leaving a 10-inch hole in their wall, it crossed four lanes
of traffic and bounced off the roof of Ming Jiang, whose mother was
watching his 10-month-old son inside his house.

"She had no idea what was going on -- it was a very loud boom,"
Jiang told reporters. "She thought a tree fell, or maybe a meteor,
but it was not clear it was some cannonball that landed on a
roof."

According to a statement released by the Discovery Channel to
Wired, Nelson is an explosives expert for the show and was on site
for the test. "All proper safety protocol was observed," the
statement said, adding that the show's producer, Beyond
Productions, "is currently assessing the situation and working with
those whose property was affected."

Prior to the incident, show co-hosts Tory Belleci and Kari Byron
had apparently tweeted images of themselves (above) with various
cannons, but those images have since been taken down. However, the
photos have been posted online.